Any medics/scientists on here can answer this for me...

Community-acquired pneumonia can affect both lungs and can be caused by bacteria, fungi and viruses - including other, less harmful, types of coronavirus.

The jury is still out on why young people and children are 'spared'; however, they are not immune. It's clear that those with underlying health issues and existing comorbidities are more at-risk of developing severe Covid-19 (something like 8/10 fatalities were people with health issues/comorbidities) and these are more present in the elderly. Other theories are at the molecular and genetic level as opposed to functionally inefficient lungs. For example, some studies have shown that the elderly have higher expression of the key receptor used by Sars-Cov-2 to gain entry into cells (ACE2).

 

What on earth are comorbidities? Never seen that word before in all my 51 years. Have you made it up?

I generally think I am quite intelligent until I come on here and then some people make me see the flaw in my thinking.

 

Nope, it's not a word I've made up! Taken from Wikipedia: 'In medicine, comorbidity is the presence of one or more additional conditions co-occurring with (that is, concomitant or concurrent with) a primary condition; in the countable sense of the term, a comorbidity (plural comorbidities) is each additional condition.'

So for example, in patients with Covid-19 showing the worst clinical outcome, the most prevalent comorbidities are hypertension, followed by diabetes.